Brewfest
Brewfest is a holiday loosely based on the Bavarian Oktoberfest. It contains quests and novelty things such as outfits, kegs, and riding rams. In 2008, it began on the 20th of September and continued until October 4th. The main events will be just outside of Ironforge and Orgrimmar, although there will also be beer gardens set up outside of all the major cities. The only small exception to this is Shattrath; its beergarden is between the Aldor/Scryer elevators, likely so the city's sanctuary status would continue to be easily maintained. (There are even Teldrassil Pink Elekk to be seen within this area by the inebriated.) :Celebrated by both the Horde and the Alliance, the Brewfest is a time to enjoy the fermented fruits of the harvest: pretzels, cheese, and booze! The competing breweries Thunderbrew, Barleybrew, and the Ogres, all come together outside of all the major cities in a bid to outdo each other with their special ales, meads, and beers. Brave adventurers are invited to sit back, take a pull, and sample the finest wares these brewers have to offer!''http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/events/brewfest/ Brew and buffs Brewfest is about brew, and the brew is good, and is cheap or free. The brews vended by the brewers are both alcoholic (inebriating) and provide a well fed buff, similar to the Rumsey Rums. The brewers have representatives at other cities vending the same brews. The reward for the easy ''Say, There Wouldn't Happen to be a Souvenir This Year, Would There? quest (see Quests below) will allow you to drink a few of these selections for free. There is also food and other inebriating drinks available. The complementary sample brews used to pelt the Dark Iron Dwarves will also get you drunk. Tapping of the Keg At 6:15 AM and 6:15 PM server time, Gelbin Mekkatorque or Vol'jin gives a short speech and taps the small keg on the stand at the Brewfest grounds. Characters attending this ceremony receive a Brewfest Enthusiast buff granting 10% extra experience for two hours (reportedly only from killing mobs, not from quests, much like rest). Brewfest mounts With Brewfest 2008, the Brewfest mounts are no longer available for purchase through the token system. Players must now venture to Blackrock Depths and defeat Coren Direbrew, a boss encounter whose method of summoning is similar to the Headless Horseman. The mount is not a guaranteed drop, but the mounts are not faction-specific!http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=10043238782&sid=1 Players from either side stand a chance at looting the or the Players who completed the quest to unlock ram mount purchasing in 2007 may still purchase and from the Ram Racing Apprentice ( or ), no trip into Blackrock Depths needed. Token redemption There are several items you can get from redeeming . To redeem your tokens, or turn 2007's into tokens, visit * at the Alliance Brewfest grounds outside Ironforge * in the Stonefire Tavern in Ironforge. * at the Horde Brewfest grounds outside Orgrimmar * in the Valley of Spirits in Orgrimmar Larkin Thunderbrew and Ray'ma remain available for redeeming Brewfest Prize Tokens for some time after Brewfest ends. They will not offer to vend after the Brewfest if you are not carrying Brewfest Prize Tokens. Note that they sell one item, Wolpertinger's Tankard, for cash, but you need to be carrying Brewfest Prize Tokens to have the option to buy this item. The Brewfest Hops items are like the of the Feast of Winter Veil. Preserved Brewfest Hops is like the of the Feast of Winter Veil. Quests Alliance * from Commoners found in every major city. (Only available if you haven't done ) * * from , Kharanos ** *** from * ** * ** ***"Do you have additional work?" - doesn't quite follow the quest mechanic, but is the repeatable Racing Ram delivery run. Not a daily, repeatable every 12 (see bugs) hours. ** or ** * from In hiatus for 2008 * (In hiatus for 2008. however the BoP , which summons a wolpertinger companion, is available for from the token redeemer, and wild wolpertingers are still visible if you are sufficiently drunk.) * (In hiatus for 2008) Horde * from Commoners found in every major city. (Only available if you haven't done ) * * from , Durotar ** *** from * ** * ** ***"Do you have additional work?" - doesn't quite follow the quest mechanic, but is the repeatable Racing Ram delivery run. Not a daily, repeatable every 12 (see bugs) hours. ** or ** * from In hiatus for 2008 * (In hiatus for 2008. However the BoP , which summons a wolpertinger companion, is available for from the token redeemer) * (In hiatus for 2008) Continuing to help out Brewfest After completing the quest "There and Back Again" by your respective faction, talk to your faction's . There is an option to help out by delivering more ale from the village to the . This is not a quest that will show up in your quest log, and it won't count against your daily total. It resets every 12/18 (see bugs) hours, so you can repeat it more than once a day. The non-quest mechanic gives you a Rental Racing Ram for four minutes, which has a 12/18 hour cooldown. If the Rental Racing Ram buff is dispelled or cancelled, and you cannot restore it; you simply have to wait for the reset. If you are shapeshifted, you will be unable to mount the ram, but you will have consumed your attempt, and again you have to wait to get another one. When the mechanic is started, you will be given Ram Racing Reins, however, you can also request them from the neighboring NPC to get a head start. The non-quest mechanic works the same as the There and Back Again quest, except that for each successful delivery, you are awarded an extra 30 seconds on your Rental Racing Ram buff and . The maximum number of tokens that can be obtained is debatable. However you can use the following formula to predict how many coins you could win, given your run speed. Remember that each run gives , so for example if you have 6 successful run you will receive . Ignore any remainder on the number of runs - partial runs do not count. : Number of runs = 210 seconds / (run time in seconds - 30 seconds) In theory, if every run (including the first one where you have to speed up from a stand still) could be completed in 30 seconds or less, you would not actually have 210 runs, but an infinite number of runs. However, to even obtain a 35 second run requires a very skilled and consistant rider who was lucky enough to experience zero lag. In this scenario, it would seem the hypothetical "perfect run" would yield from 42 successful runs. As a point of reference, multiple contributors have reported several runs of 23 rounds, which is just over 39 seconds on average (remembering the first round is slower). Dark Iron Attacks prepare to attack Brewfest in 2007]] Every half-hour, a party of Dark Iron Dwarves will crash the party at the main Brewfest camps outside Ironforge and Orgrimmar. Hitting these dwarves with a beer mug will stop them from stealing the free brew. Here's how you can participate in saving the free brew for the invited guests: Pick up a complementary sample brew from any one of the square tables. The mugs last 15 minutes, logged in or not. They are handed out from the Brewery Barkers whenever players loot a free sampler from the tables. Using this item will cause you to quickly drink it and throw the empty mug. Staying in range (roughly 40 yards) of the NPCs that represent each brewery around the area while using a complementary brew sampler will cause them to toss you another sample. If you need to, you can always manually loot another one from the table. Drinking the mugs will get you drunk, especially if you are doing it several times in rapid succession. If there are Dark Irons around, the mug you throw may hit one of them and knock them out. It is a random chance, and does not appear to depend on character level. This is a somewhat unique battle in WoW where a low level character can contribute as much as a high level character. The mug works even with no Dark Irons around; it will either hit your target or if you have no target it just lands on the ground. Each time you throw the mug, you lose it, but another one will quickly be thrown to you by a barker provided you are somewhere nearby. It is useful to bind the mug to a hot key in order to drink and throw rapidly. It is not useful to chase the Dark Iron Dwarves. The empty mugs travel quite far, and moving interrupts throwing. In addition, the Dark Iron Dwarves have a brawling move that throws player characters away from them and interrupts throwing mugs, so keeping your distance allows you to attack more often. On occasion, large silver mugs will be placed on the ground. Walking through one of these mugs will give the player a whirlwind attack buff for several seconds. When one such mug is placed on the ground, a barker will yell out "try some of this super brew". During the 2007 Brewfest event, a stacking mark buff was awarded based on knocking out Dark Iron Dwarves, which could then be turned into tickets. For 2008 this is replaced by a daily quest offered by a remaining large cog of the Dark Iron Diggers if you're able to fight off the attackers and keep at least one of the kegs intact. The large cog has a quest question mark; loot the quest before the cog disappears. Turning the quest in to the practice mugs NPC awards 10 . You can assist the defense as often as you want to, but you can only get the quest once per day. If you are part of any additional successful defenses within a day, you will not be able to click on the cog for a quest dialog. Beating the waves of Dark Iron Dwarves is a group effort, there are too many and the drink and toss rate is too low for any one character to do this by themselves. Your assistance is always welcome by other defenders, but if you are setting aside time to do this for the quest tokens, do it at a time when the server is busy so that you will be part of a heavily defended Brewfest celebration. You do not have to take part in the defense in order to collect this quest. The cog is available for anyone to loot if the defenders are successful. You may have to have completed the Chug and Chuck! quest. Racing Ram Tips Several of the quests involve the racing rams, including the barking runs and the keg delivery. The ram racing event mechanics do not depend on character level. The rams have 5 speeds, accessed through the . Using the reins "encourages" the ram to speed up; encourage it enough times and its speed increases (see the speed table below). It takes a few clicks to go up to the next speed and you have to click on a regular basis to stay in a speed range. Clicking faster than the maintenance rate will speed up the pace, while not clicking for a while will slow down. Binding your reins to a hot key will give you an easier method to more easily and precisely control your use of your reins. The first ram practice quest that teaches you how to achieve the speeds. If you get into Canter and Gallop speeds, you get a stacking debuff called Ram Fatigue which tracks your ram's fatigue. If this debuff stacks to 100, your ram becomes exhausted and slows almost to a crawl for 15 seconds. It is essential that you manage your ram's fatigue, and the two repeatable ram racing events, delivery and barking, provide two different means for doing so. Keg delivery Ramstein's Swift Work Ram lasts for a total of 4 minutes. During the keg delivery daily quest, the time limit for the ram is increased by 30 seconds for each keg delivered. However, the buff has a maximum duration of 15 minutes. Even if you deliver the 23rd keg successfully, which increases the duration to 15m30s, you will be dismouted at the 15m mark. If you gallop the whole way, a single keg trip can easily take as little as 40-60 seconds, earning you 2 , meaning that expert ram riders can stretch out the four-minute keg run to 8-10 minutes, getting 20 Brewfest Prize Tokens or more (down from 50 in the beginning of the event in 2007). For the keg deliveries, there are apple barrels which, if you ride by closely enough, will remove the Ram Fatigue debuff entirely and allow it to start at zero again. This is very important to maximize token gain from the keg delivery daily quest, it allows you to gallop at full speed throughout the event. (The apple barrels work on any ram, and there are some barrels near the barker quest NPCs, but the barking run does not have barrels along the barking route.) Players with lag may find that riding past the barrels does not always dispel the debuff. If this happens to you, compensate by ramming the barrels for a half second or so and then slide around them. An alternate method is to make an arching, banana shaped path around the barrel resulting in a longer path through the barrel's trigger radius without having to actually pause the forward movement of the ram. Jumping in the proximity of the barrel seems to give you a fraction of a second longer for the fatigue dispel to proc. This extra time in proximity to the barrel will reduce the chance that you will miss your reset and exhaust your ram. In the 2007 Brewfest you could stop (by pressing the key that would normally cause you to back up) momentarily, again creating extra time in proximity to the barrel, but this is not possible in the Brewfest 2008. You should keep tabs on the debuff and watch for the red flash when it dispels, but beware, the red flash is an unreliable indication, check that the debuff reset to zero. If the debuff fails to dispel, it is much more expedient to return to the barrel than to allow the Exhausted Ram to proc. The endpoints can also fail to proc, and it is useful to keep your main bag open so that you can see when you get the keg and when you've delivered it. By all means ensure that you delivered the keg, you will not get the extra 30 seconds until you do. If you have to revisit an end point, you will probably also need a trip to an apple barrel. The best time of day to do this quest is when the server is least busy, because you will have less problem with events not proccing. Evening is the prime time to avoid, if your schedule allows it. Optimal path for Alliance: There are four apple barrels along the route - barrel 1 in the ram pen, barrel 2 at the crossing, barrel 3 at the gnome house (new in 2008), and barrel 4 in Kharanos behind the keg thrower. You should avoid using barrel 4, since barrel 3 is so close to the keg thrower. Just make a quick 180 shortly before you'd ride past the guard (Ironforge Mountaineer), and ride back to barrel 3. Similarly, you should avoid using barrel 1, since barrel 2 is so close to the keg receiver. Just make a quick 180 shortly after you ride into the clearing where the receiver stands. You should use as few barrels as possible; each entails a slight but cumulative delay. There are a few fast routes, but you will have to compromise some guidelines. * Strategy 1 - The first strategy is less risky, but a little slower (14-15 deliveries). Just ride to barrel 3, get the keg, ride back to barrel 3, then ride to barrel 1 at the ram pen (skipping barrel 2 entirely). Rinse and repeat. Uses 3 refreshment barrels. * Strategy 2 - The second strategy is like the first, but reverses the refreshing scheme. Ride to barrel 2, ride toward barrel 4, but approach from the keg thrower's side. There is a line of barrels stacked near the road, if you ride along either side of that, you are close enough to get a keg. Ride around keg four, or jump and spin over it, and ride back to barrel 2. Ride toward the keg receiver, turn in the clearing before you get to him, and repeat. Uses 3 refreshment barrels. * Strategy 3 - The third route (16-20 deliveries) goes like this: You start by going to barrel 3, get the keg, ride to barrel 3, then ride towards the ram pen in a straight line. Now there are two flags in front of the ram pen: Flag 1 in front of it next to a big tree, and another one next to a smaller tree. When you ride a couple yards past flag 1, you'll throw your keg. Make a quick turn there, and ride around the big tree towards barrel 2. Your fatigue should be 50-55 when you make that turn. Just to be safe you should stop using your Ram Racing Reins at 45-50 fatigue. You'll fall back to Canter when your debuff stacks to ~90 (this is where it gets a little risky). Just make sure your debuff resets, then start using the Reins again and Gallop to barrel 3, etc. So this is the path: Barrel 3, pick up the keg, barrel 3, deliver, barrel 2, barrel 3, pick up the keg, barrel 3, deliver, 2->3->pick up->3->deliver->2->3 etc. Uses 3 refreshment barrels, none of which are end point turns. * Strategy 4 - Another route you might want to try is hit both middle barrels in both directions, and skip both end barrels: (start), barrel 2, barrel 3, pick-up (yards in front of the NPC), barrel 3, barrel 2, deliver (yards in front of the NPC), repeat. This is a very fast, yet forgiving route, and you can adjust your pickup and delivery turns as you gain confidence. Uses 4 refreshment barrels, none of which are end point turns. This is slower than the third strategy, but the timing is not as tight, so it is less risky as you are building confidence. * Strategy 5 - It's possible to use only barrel 3. The path is very simple: Barrel 3, pick up, barrel 3, deliver. You should only try this route if you're very good at using the jumping trick below (keep the Galloping speed midair while only getting Canter fatigue ticks). You need to use it about 6 times when delivering the keg. It's the fastest possible route (very close to a straight line), but also the hardest. Tip: Practice with the ram from the barking quest. Optimal path for Horde: There are also four apple barrels along the route, which goes along the road toward Razor Hill. Barrel 1 is in the ram pen behind the tent, barrel 2 along the west side of the road (right side when you are starting), north (toward org) of the goblin merchant' cart and clearing, barrel 3 hidden behind a small hilly outcropping on the east (left side when you are starting out) at the entrance to the canyon, and barrel 4 in the canyon behind and across the road to the east of the keg thrower. The same guidelines and strategies apply with the additional advice that barrel 2 seems particularly conveniently placed. It's safest to eat from all three barrels, but Barrel 2 is close enough to the keg receiver than you can eat from Barrel 2, toss the keg, and return to Barrel 2 just as your ram's fatigue hits 90-95. The timing is very close, and players with server lag might not wish to risk the two seconds it could take for your ram to register that an apple barrel is nearby. General tips: A tip for quick, easy course changes: Once you get your ram pointed on a clear straight path to an apple barrel or keg pick-up or drop-off point, rotate your camera to face the direction you'll want to travel after getting there. That way, when you reach your destination, you can press the right mouse button to change your heading instantly and accurately. The rams are always running, but the game still keeps track of whether your character is in run or stand mode. If you are in run mode many peoples' camera swings to face forward. You can just press your key bound to turn off movement. Your ram will still be running, but your camera will stay in place as if you were standing still. You can also hold down your left mouse button after rotating the view to remain facing where you've turned the camera. While doing this, pressing the right mouse button will instantly change the direction as above. Another tip to try and maximize your runs involves jumping. If you jump while your ram is Galloping, then in midair you switch to Canter, you can get a few seconds of Gallop speed with the fatigue cost of Canter. So with some good timing you can get 2 to 4 seconds of free Gallop time between the barrel thrower and the apples. Also for those without lag, take note of how soon you can turn around. It's much sooner than you may think. Keep your thumb on the space bar to jump, because you will get hung up on scenery items, and jumping will usually release you. If that doesn't work, try quick turns. If the Exhasted Ram debuff procs, you are kind of screwed; even if you are at a barrel, with zero fatigue, the debuff will run for its full 15 seconds. Don't sweat it, just do your best and get the most tokens you can out of the remainder of the run. If the debuff procs and your fatigue is still high, around 85, then trot or canter to the nearest barrel, don't gallop, then resume the run after you've cleared your fatigue. Seconds count To restate the point, if you can consistently shave seconds off your runs, you will get more tokens. Don't feel bad if you screw up, it is a learning process, and this run has all kinds of room for improving your technique. If you at least try, you will get some tokens. But the curve of run time vs how many tokens you get takes off asymptotically toward infinity as you approach a 30 second run. So, as your runs get very good, fractions of a second saved can accumulate to several tokens difference. Barking runs For the barking runs, there are no apple barrels along the route, and you will have to pace yourself. Gallop becomes counterproductive; you will build up fatigue too rapidly and be forced to go too slow. Mixing canter for speed and trot for fatigue recovery while still moving will allow you to complete the task. When you complete the quest and are returning to the NPC, both the Alliance and Horde versions will afford you the opportunity to take a downhill shortcut. Take it if you can. Leaving Iron Forge, go down the mountainside toward the Brewfest. If you pick your way, you can have damage under 100, but expect over 100. If you jump straight down expect over 400 damage. In Orgrimmar, leaving the Valley of Spirits, fortuitous use of jumping down to rooftops will allow you to take a straighter route out of the city. The quest objectives are to bark at four locations in the city, but returning to the quest NPC is not a quest objective. This means you only have to return to the NPC to turn in the already completed quest. You can switch to your normal mount, as long as you barked at all four locations while mounted on the ram. (Unconfirmed, but you probably need to have the reins in your possession when you talk to the NPC, so walking back may not be fast enough.) Other ram tips The rams work much like any other mount, an performing most actions while mounting will despawn the mount. That means when you are on a ram, and if you are you are on a ram racing quest, stay focused on the ram quest, do not do anything else. Be careful which hot key you press. Your faction's , next to NPC offers replacement reins. These do not summon a ram, however, they are useful to prep for the non-quest mechanic, when continuing to help out Brewfest. The rams are actually a spell Rental Racing Ram that lasts for four minutes. You could probably creatively exploit this for your low level character. You might use it to run toward Loch Modan for the delivery quest and to pick up the fight path. If you do this on the initial ram racing quests, rather than the repeatables, you can abandon the quest and get another ram. NPCs Horde *Agnes Farwithers *Bizzle Quicklift *Blix Fixwidget *Blood Elf Commoner *Bok Dropcertain *Brew Vendor *Brewfest Reveler (various races) *Bron *Cort Gorestein *Driz Tumblequick *Drohn's Distillery Apprentice *Drohn's Distillery Barker *Drunken Brewfest Reveler *Forsaken Commoner *Glodrak Huntsniper *Gordok Brew Apprentice *Gordok Brew Barker *Gordok Brew Chief *Ja'ron *Orc Commoner *Ram Master Ray *Ray'ma *Self Turning and Oscillating Utility Target *Slurpo Fizzykeg *Suntouched Apprentice *Tapper Swindlekeg *Tauren Commoner *T'chali's Voodoo Brewery Apprentice *T'chali's Voodoo Brewery Barker *Uta Roughdough *Vol'jin (during keg tapping ceremony) Many of the Horde goblin NPCs for the Brewfest are wearing dwarf masks. This appears to be an homage to the dwarves' legendary brewing and drinking abilities. Alliance *Anne Summers *Arlen Lochlan *Barleybrew Apprentice *Becan Barleybrew *Belbi Quikswitch (also noteworthy for her suggestive flirting banter) *Boxey Boltspinner *Brew Vendor *Brewfest Reveler (various races) *Brother Cartwright *Daran Thunderbrew *Darna Honeybock *Draenei Commoner *Dwarf Commoner *Flynn Firebrew *Goldark Snipehunter *Gordok Brew Apprentice *Gordok Brew Barker *Gordok Brew Chief *Human Commoner *Ipfelkofer Ironkeg *Ita Thunderbrew *Keiran Donoghue *Larkin Thunderbrew *Maeve Barleybrew *Neill Ramstein *Night Elf Commoner *Pol Amberstill *Self Turning and Oscillating Utility Target *Thunderbrew Apprentice Mobs *Racing Ram *Swift Racing Ram *Great Brewfest Kodo *If you get sufficiently drunk, you might see some Wild Wolpertingers, they are still around. **(... and hunter's Beast Tracking tracks them ... when you are drunk.) *This suggests that there may still be Pink Elekks in last year's locations. Achievements and Title See the Brewmaster article for more information. Screenshots Image:WoWScrnShot 092207 175803.jpg‎|Brewfest in Durotar. Image:Markvend.jpg‎|Prize Ticket Vendor in 2007. Image:Bron.jpg‎|Sausage Vendor. Image:Ridingmas.jpg‎|Ram Racing Master. Image:Drunken Brewfest Reveler.jpg‎|Drunken Brewfest Reveler Bugs The Dark Iron fight was not awarding tokens due to a bug in the 2007 event. http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=5963126537&sid=1 However, the fact that they don't give tokens is now replaced by the 'cog' world item that gives a daily quest for tokens. The cog only drops if the invaders are repelled. Blizzard was reworking the Catch the Wild Wolpertinger! and Pink Elekks On Parade quests for 2008, but ran into a problem that could not be hotfixed, and only solvable through a patch. The problem came up too late to be patched in time, which forced Blizzard to disable the quests. http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=10043229535&sid=1 The reset time on the Ram racing quest appears to be bugged for some people, causing the reset time to be 18 hours instead of the 'intended' 12. This bug is not afflicting everyone, but if your quest doesn't reset after 12 hours, try again after 18. No official response from Blizzard at this time. Historical notes The first Brewfest event in World of Warcraft began on October 3, 2007. October 3rd is a German national holiday, the German Unity Day. It lasted until October 16, 2007. References External links Category:Brewfest Category:Holidays